Dayday calls for budget before election day in Saskatoon

Saskatoon Mayoral candidate Henry Dayday is calling for city council to vote in favour of having administration release a preliminary budget before election day.

Dayday shared a letter sent to council with the media at a press conference on Thursday.

Along with asking for the vote on the preliminary budget, Dayday criticized council for passing tax increases averaging 5.4 per cent in each of the last four years.

He also took time to once again call on council to repeal a bylaw authorizing $10,000 communications allowances for each city councillor and $100,000 for the mayor.

Speaking at his press event, Dayday flat-out said that in his view, the current mayor and council have not been responsible with the city’s finances.

“How could they possibly be fiscally responsible when they’ve got tax increases of 5.4 per cent (and) debts going close to half a billion dollars?” he said.

Dayday pledged, if elected, he would keep any tax increase for 2017 below inflation.

When it was pointed out the mayor is only one of 11 votes on council, Dayday said he’d be able to wrangle the other votes he’d need to drive his agenda.

“Leadership. Leadership. You work together with people. You don’t work independently, and that’s really the key,” he said.

Dayday said he’d be able to meet his target without compromising things like levies for roads and snow removal.

He said one of his first targets would be fees paid to private consultants, which amounted to about $18 million in 2016.

“Meanwhile you’ve got all this staff, which are well-qualified,” Dayday said. “They’re very good people at city hall, they can do the job, why are we hiring consultants?”

Fellow candidates for mayor Charlie Clark and Kelley Moore have both said they want the preliminary budget released before election day on Oct. 26.

The issue moves to the city’s governance and priorities committee next week. Should the committee vote in favour of having administration release the budget, a full session of council would have to approve the move on Sept. 19.

The preliminary budget is a document generated by city administration, it serves as a preliminary set of recommendations which council can then modify before voting on a final budget for the city.